Emily Laurance, Ph.D. 2003

Advisor: James Haar

Dissertation Title: Varieties of Operatic Realism in Nineteenth-Century France: The Case of Gustave Charpentier’s Louise (1900)

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Dissertation Abstract:

When Gustave Charpentier’s Louise first premiered at the Opéra-comique in 1900, it was a critical commonplace to refer to it as a realist work. Even its generic subtitle—”roman musical”—seemed to speak of its connection to a movement that was largely literary. In terms of opera, there was no established genre of the kind, nor did a “realist opera” describe any fixed stylistic categories. What then, was behind this reaction? In terms of genre, Louise is a hybrid, showing borrowings from many different traditions. Major sections of it show influences from French popular boulevard theater. Its plot shows affinities with mid-century melodrama and bourgeois theater traditions. Charpentier himself often cited Zola as an influence, and Louise‘s working-class plot and its quasi-symbolic treatment of Paris bear this out. Musically, the work shows obvious debts to Wagner, both because of its avoidance of clear number division and its leitmotivic organization. The melodic contours, harmonic language and masterful orchestration, however, are clearly in line with the grand French tradition as Charpentier learned it from Jules Massenet. All of these influences contribute to the perception of Louise as a realist work, but each represents a different version of realism. 

Nineteenth-century realism typically embraced two competing versions of the real—the realism of particulars, and a determinist realism emphasizing natural forces and physical laws. These were set against each other, making the sharpness of the former stand out against the backdrop of the latter, the descriptive particulars infusing realist works with a strong sense of materiality. For music to fit into this scheme, it too must be used in a similar contrasting manner. On the one hand it must become almost a physical object. It has to be cordoned off into individual units, differentiated from each other in time and through the use of highly contrasting musical attributes so that they acquire some kind of identity. On the other, music can aid in the suggestion of causal realities—often through the use of open forms, as it does in Louise. The deftness with which Charpentier accomplished the musical suggestion of competing realisms was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for its striking success. 

Recipient of the Glen Haydon Dissertation Award

Dr. Laurance worked as a Professor of Music History and Literature at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she also served as department chair and accreditation liaison officer, from 2006 to 2017. She has also worked at Oberlin College and Case Western Reserve University. Also an accomplished harpist, she has worked professionally as a performer and teacher of harp for over thirty years.